My wife manages large scale remediation projects and says that on average a government contract costs approximately twice what a non-government contract would d

My wife manages large scale remediation projects and says that on average a government contract costs approximately twice what a non-government contract would due to time, not materials cost. All contracts have to be proposed with estimates, awarded, negotiated, revised, and re-proposed. Everything has to be approved and the lead times for going into the field or requisitioning materials is counted in months, not weeks or days. All contract project managers have a corresponding Government assigned project manager who must approve everything. She said procurement rules are onerous and have fun restrictions like "all materials must be sourced from the USA unless unavailable" that add to the time needed to find and vet sources. Because of all this, the government typically awards contracts to companies it has worked with previously and not necessarily the lowest bidders. The contractors almost always subcontract out everything except management. It's also not uncommon when the government has to award a contract to new contractor, they will also contract with a familiar firm for PMs to manage the new contractor. So maybe a little bit of your first candidate and less of the second?